Trials Evolution: Gold Edition Review

Every console has a Trials game, or at least a game following the same formula. Though with recent versions becoming very much ‘copycat’ and adding nothing new, it’s great to see the developers increasing the amount of levels, stunts, and

general over the top features of the original games. With popular IP’s it comes as a welcome surprise when they increase the content that fans love, and with so many imitations, it’s crucial that they bring something new to the game.

Fans of Trials HD will always remember the stark difficulty of the later levels, where I’m sure many a controller has been thrown, and slight rage fits have occurred. Jumps and tricks needed to be pulled off with such pixel-perfect accuracy that it became reminiscent of playing Ninja Gaiden on the NES.

For those of you who haven’t played a Trial game before, it’s a physics based, 2.5d, dirt bike game where you must complete the race as fast as you can, whilst completing jumps and pulling stunts throughout. Slowly increasing in difficulty until they seem damn near unbeatable, to some they have been.

The most revamped part of this game though? The levels. Unlike in other games you don’t have to wait until a special set of levels to get crazy races, or some extra DLC, within the first 5 levels, I stormed Normandy beach on D-Day whilst under fire. Seriously what other games allow you to do that? Or racing on the roof tops of massive structures, the level design once again is fantastic, not once did I feel like a level was re-used or a certain setting was getting boring because of how many times it had been used, it always manages to make each of your runs feel like you just did something amazing. The game runs at quite a brisk pace too, which helps this part even more.

The Trials HD maps haven’t been changed, though you won’t get access to them until you have finished the maps from Gold. It’s nice that you have to unlock them, and for those who never got to play it, it is a nice bonus to receive at the end.

Graphically the game has not changed much since Trials HD. The game looks good and runs well, though it is clear the engine is slowly showing its age, but not in a bad way. It’s the same way most engines are this generation – it runs well, but lower end graphic cards are going to be struggling because of the amount of explosions and activity going on in the background. Whilst very entertaining, my lower end graphics on my laptop did have trouble keeping it at a steady 60, which was surprising with the level of graphics being used.

It is also worth noting that this version contains all the courses from Trials HD for free on top of all the current maps, making this one of the biggest Trials games to date, and easily the best value for money. Although, the PC version has horrible controls, and if you are going to be playing it on PC hopefully you have a 360 or some other USB controller that can be used in its place, because in later levels it will just get very stressful, more so because the analogue sticks offer much better control.

The games track editor is still present as well, which means that even though the pre-set levels are crazy enough, there will be no limit to what the community can manage to create, as any other game with an editor shows. This I’m sure will add at least quite a few more hours of game play with the customised tracks to the game. There are also community leader boards, which will allow friends to compete against each other, and then to compete against other players. I just hope that the developers keep an eye on cheating, as it will get boring seeing people with times of 0:00001 just because it makes them feel special. For some reason the Steam store page lists “Multiplayer” as a feature, and I want it known that I got very excited at the aspect of two players on one track, and became a little disappointed when this was not the case.

This is one of the best Trials games released to date, and even though most of the copycat games have mimicked the game play correctly, the imaginative level design seems to be something that isn’t possible to be emulated by them. If you want a Trials game, there really is no other reason not to choose Trials Gold. The copycat games seem to get boring more quickly, and just generally seem more stale. Gold will keep players wanting to play, with the addition of user designed courses and leader boards for those who like to be competitive.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.